Friday, January 29, 2016

SPIRITUAL EXPLORATIONS -- 54

WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE
OF HUMILITY

+ Once again I turn
to that great Sufi teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan (see SE posts 22, 31, 45 and
46):

There is a story of a dervish who spoke with
a young man who was very interested in his words of wisdom. The young man said,
'If I come to your part of the world, I will come to see you. Will you tell me
where you live?' The dervish replied, 'I live in the place of the liars'. ...
When he went to that country and asked for the dervish, the people said, 'We do
not know any place of liars, but there is a dervish living somewhere here'. So
they took him near the graveyard where the dervish lived.

The first question the young man asked was,
'Why did you give me a name which is not the name of the place?' The dervish
replied, 'Yes, this is a place of liars'. It was the graveyard. He said, 'Come
with me, I shall show you. This here is a tomb, they say, of a general. Where
is his sword, where is his power, where is his voice, what is he now? Is he a
general? Here, this one was called a prime-minister. Where is his ministry,
where is his office, where is his pen, where is his power? In the same ground!
This person was called a judge. Whom is he judging now? He is in the ground.
Were they not liars? Did they not tell a lie saying I am so and so, and I am
such and such?'

There is a beautiful story told of the King
Akbar that when he was grieving with an almost ungovernable grief over the
death of his mother, his ministers and friends tried to comfort him by
influence and power. Akbar replied, "Yes, that is true, and that only
makes my grief greater; for while I have everyone to bow before me, to give way
to me, to salute me and obey me, my mother was the one person before whom I
could humble myself; and I cannot tell you how great a joy that was to
me."

Think then of the far greater joy of
humbling oneself before the Father-Mother God on Whose Love one can always
depend. A spark only of love expresses itself in the human father and mother;
the Whole of Love in God. In whatever manner a man humbles himself it can never
be enough to express the humility of the limited self before Limitless
Perfection. Self-denial is not renouncing of things, it is denying the self;
and the first lesson of self-denial is humility.

+ So, as you can
see, Hazrat Inayat Khan clearly links humility to detachment, or renunciation. Yes, stillness and detachment lead to humility
and humility is heavenly. So, remain committed to those foundational
mind practices. You can return again and
again to SE posts 1 to 48 for inspiration and illumination on these practices. Spiritual Exploration often means returning
again and again to places already explored since there is always more to learn
and to share.

If you have any
inclination to write at all, I urge you to write about your spiritual
practice. Writing often leads to greater
clarity and deeper motivation to continue on this journey. You are invited to share your insights. Send them to john@abundancetrek.com and be sure to
write Spiritual Explorations in the subject line.